Fake ticket racket in STC: 3 staff suspended

SALEM: An alleged racket in printing of counterfeit tickets for buses operated by the State-owned Tamil Nadu State Transport Corporation (TNSTC) has come to light in Salem division, leading to the suspension of three departmental staff working as cashiers in the Erumapalayam depot here.

Official sources said on Friday that the racket in printing fake bus tickets was detected when a passenger had come to the superintendent’s office at the new bus terminus here, showed the ticket he had purchased on board a Salem-Coimbatore bus recently. He demanded that the department return the cash owed to him as he had given a Rs 2,000 currency note for purchasing the ticket priced at Rs 101, while travelling from Avinashi to Coimbatore.

The conductor on that TNSTC bus route from Salem had endorsed the cash payment behind the ticket, but the passenger had reportedly not cared to collect the remaining amount on alighting at Coimbatore that day.

However, officials here then quizzed the conductor on duty that day on that particular route and a careful examination of the ticket revealed that it was a counterfeit bus ticket.  

Further inquiries revealed that three employees in the Erumapalayam, who had been recruited for the post of conductor few years ago, had been working as cashiers in the depot for want of staff and their involvement in printing of counterfeit bus tickets was suspected.

The three staff members had allegedly colluded in printing counterfeit bus ticket books based on serial numbers from earlier printed tickets and circulating the bogus tickets, sources said, adding, pending further investigation, all the three were placed under suspension.